Adjective Lesson During the Unit on Waves
Summary:
In this activity, students drew on their own prior knowledge about certain adjectives (bigger, higher, more, longer, and larger) to draw their own conclusion that the adjectives are not interchangeable and then apply this knowledge to physics vocabulary, specifically wavelength, frequency, and energy.
Background:
This activity came about after I had reviewed a number of student work and found that students were using a variety of the adjectives (bigger, higher, more, longer, and larger) to describe wavelength, frequency, and energy. Reflecting on the student work, I came to the conclusion that I needed to explicitly scaffold how to think about words and their associated adjective(s). Although the adjectives are very similar in meaning, they are not interchangeable. For example, "more wavelength" is different from "longer wavelength", as "bigger frequency" is different from" higher frequency", and "larger energy" from "more energy".
Below is the mini-lesson activity that I planned in order to achieve the above:
At the beginning of a class, I had my students to write and draw pictures of sentences with the adjectives, telling them that I did not want them to be physics related. By removing the physics aspect, students easily accomplished the task and were mystified why we were covering something so simple. As soon as they came up with the sentences, they realized on their own that the words were not interchangeable. The activity set them up so that when I brought the concept back into physics, with the terms of wavelength, frequency, and energy, they realized the importance of being attentive to which adjective they used. On their own, they ended up choosing the right adjectives for each term.
Below is a sample of student work. Click on the image for a larger picture.
Below is a sample of student work. Click on the image for a larger picture.